Sports and Militarism Shouldn’t Mix

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. I’m a sports fan. And last weekend I caught the epic clash between the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs, once again won by the Chiefs and the magical Patrick Mahomes. Yet seemingly no big NFL game is...

read more

Thermonuclear Crack: The Death Wish of the ‘Elites’

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Isn’t it high time we “augment” our nuclear force “posture”? Shouldn’t we fight to achieve peace through nuclear “strength” and “deterrence”? Isn’t it smart to “refurbish, rebuild, and modernize” the nuclear...

read more

William Astore on The American Cult of Bombing

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Back in August of 2014, I wrote a piece for TomDispatch on the American cult of bombing. The Air Force’s new stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider, was still on the drawing board a decade ago. The Air Force wanted...

read more

America’s Merchants of Death Are Making a Killing

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Yesterday, the Merchants of Death Tribunal concluded with a verdict of “guilty” for all those U.S. dealers and exporters of weapons globally. Yes, the merchants of death are guilty as sin, even as they account...

read more

Gaza: Cap Guns Versus Bazookas

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. If one side is armed with cap guns and the other with bazookas, would we call that a “war” between roughly equal powers? I thought of this as I turned to Antiwar.com to see that President Biden has approved...

read more

Can We Ever Just Mind Our Own Business?

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Attacks on Iran are already being explored by the incoming Trump administration, which put me to mind of this article I wrote in 2016. Collectively, the U.S. government and its apparatus is the world’s biggest...

read more

Daniel Ellsberg on Nuclear Weapons

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Is the U.S. military becoming a paper tiger whose sole remaining power move is a mighty nuclear roar? It’s a disturbing thought, given the extent to which U.S. military power is overstretched, recruiting...

read more

How About a Winnable Nuclear Exchange, America?

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Like too many people, I sometimes make the mistake of talking about nuclear war, when it's really annihilation and genocide we're talking about. Wars have winners and losers. In nuclear "war," everyone loses....

read more

The Trillion-Dollar Blob

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. In 2018, the Pentagon failed its first audit. In 2024, it failed its seventh audit in a row. The Pentagon has been “punished” for failing seven audits – and losing track of roughly $2 trillion in gear,...

read more